Beyond Black and White in the Mississippi Delta - NYTimes.com

Beyond Black and White in the Mississippi Delta - NYTimes.com: WATCHING the American political conversation over the last two years, you might easily have assumed that everything and everyone was working from the same playbook of partisan and racial polarization. That is, unless you were watching the Mississippi Delta, where, over the last few years, three towns — Greenville, Greenwood and Indianola — with overwhelmingly African-American populations elected white mayors.

The Delta, which lies roughly between the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers, is a complex and historically star-crossed region. It has been majority black since the early 19th century, when its fertile land became the heart of the cotton kingdom and the chattel slavery system that exploited it.

Today, America associates the region with blues music and civil rights history. Heritage markers throughout the Delta identify civil rights landmarks, including the site of the murder of Emmett Till and the grave of the activist Fannie Lou Hamer. The first pro-segregation Citizens Council was founded in Indianola — which was also the boyhood home of B. B. King.